


H.R.

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 1990s, Abandonment, Angels, Complicated Relationships, Discovery, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Repressed, Family Feels, Heaven, Hell, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, POV Multiple, Relationship Problems, Relationship Reveal, Self-Esteem Issues, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-15 07:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19290685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: When Michael and Uriel appear unto Aziraphale to deliver a message, they make a shocking discovery.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning that there are references to the AIDs Crisis and to bereavement, as this is set in 1990.

The year was 1990.

The angel Aziraphale[1] was drunk. It was not that he was _often_ drunk. He was not. However, the occasions wherein he approached a bottle of anything nice – or, as was the case tonight, anything dreadful – were those when he spent his time in the company of the demon, Crowley[2]. Being drunk was a rather occasional affair, one that the two of them embarked on together, on either ill tidings or extremely healthy ones…

Aziraphale was nowhere near Crowley, now.

(Crowley, as it happened, was in his London flat many streets away, squinting over a spot-the-difference puzzle in a puzzle magazine he’d stolen from a copper on his tea break that morning[3], and occasionally laughing at the _Golden Girls_ as it played on his television.)

Aziraphale was alone, standing in the little entrance hall outside of one of his favourite clubs, the Hyacinth and Vine. On the other side of the heavy doors, he could distantly hear some song playing from a cassette tape, some _Queen_ song he had heard countless times from the Blaupunkt in Crowley’s car.

He brought his glass, mercifully cool, to his head, and held it against the red, burning skin, closing his eyes shut. He felt very red all over, and very drunk, and very miserable.

This was the sixth wake he’d been to in two months.

There were so many of them. How many more would there be?

It merely felt so… _senseless_ , and senseless it was, and senseless it would continue to be, and he felt so utterly hopeless in the face of it all. Seeing all these poor young things perish so dreadfully, and if that wasn’t bad _enough_ —

The young man’s girlfriend, she’d spoken so eloquently, even with her voice thick and hoarse from crying. “ _People like us, we have to fight for the love we get, and Pat fought for every minute of his, every minute we could spend together. You can’t let these things pass you by, he used to say. No point being scared. You just have to love as much as you can, when you can, and he did, and for that I’m— I’m so glad_.”

“Mr Fell?” asked Robert, the club’s proprietor, pushing the door open, and Aziraphale turned to look at him. He was aware that his eyes were wet, and Robert exhaled to look at him, reaching out and gently brushing his shoulder. “You alright?”

“No, dear,” Aziraphale murmured, aware of how clumsy his tongue was in his mouth with the drink. “Not really. I don’t suppose you’d be so good as to call me a cab?”

“Yes, Mr Fell,” Robert said softly, nodding his head, and dipped back inside.

Aziraphale drained his glass. It was a good deal fuller than it really ought have been, certainly fuller than it was when he took a moment outside the doors.

Perhaps that was why, when he fell into the back of the black cab, he gave completely the wrong address.

\--

Crowley glanced up when the extremely annoying and high-tech theme of his doorbell[4] interrupted him, and he snapped his fingers, pausing the Blanche mid-speech. The fact that pausing live television wasn’t yet an option to wider society did not occur to him: if he could pause a video cassette with a snap of his fingers, it followed on that he could pause anything else, and so he did.

It was a funny time to be calling – nearly eleven at night.

Hastur didn’t know how to use a doorbell, and Ligur wasn’t even in the habit of knocking, so he knew it wasn’t one of them; Dagon was uncomfortable with any location that wasn’t at least a little damp, and had never stepped foot in Crowley’s flat block; Beelzebub never visited.

He hadn’t ordered anything, but then, maybe someone had given a delivery boy the wrong address?

Hm.

Sliding from the sofa, he moved toward the door, drawing it open in one smooth movement. In one far _less_ smooth movement, Aziraphale fell into his arms, and began sobbing against his breast.

“Ah,” Crowley said, and kicked the door closed.

\--

Let us survey the scene.

Aziraphale was sitting at one end of Crowley’s extremely sleek, extremely expensive, extremely leather, sofa. It was black and white, and looked as if it belonged in a very modern museum, but it was actually surprisingly comfortable. From the back of one of his hidden storage spaces[5], Crowley had drawn out an extremely thick and fleecy black blankets, which he had wrapped around Aziraphale’s shoulders, and was slowly turning tartan. There was a mug of steaming cocoa in Aziraphale’s hands, which had been dreadful, made as it was from Crowley’s extremely rich, dark, _real_ cocoa; in Aziraphale’s hands, it had become more sugar than anything else, and was rather nice.

Crowley was sitting on the other end of the sofa, his knees drawn up to his chest. He was barefoot, in silken red pyjamas that rather plunged at the neckline until it became more of a navel border, for whatever ocean battles you liked, and Aziraphale, drunk and rather out of himself, was having to be very careful not to allow himself to spend too much time looking at the thatch of chest hair Crowley had decorated his body with.

Aziraphale sniffled.

Crowley watched him warily.

“Er,” he said, stuntedly, “you’ve never actually _been_ to my flat before.”

“I knew the address,” Aziraphale mumbled, and looked about Crowley’s living room, which was made of rather foreboding grey marble on every side, and had a rail of red and gold curtains against the broad windows, which showed a marvellous view of the London skyline on the other side of the Thames.

“And you were crying,” Crowley said.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “I know.”

“Er,” Crowley said, rather lacking the script for this situation. “Why?”

“You needn’t sit so far away, you know,” Aziraphale said, staring down at his own hands where they gripped the cocoa mug. “I’ve not anything contagious.”

Crowley stared at the angel, feeling the old thread of distant bitterness, mixed up with aching want, make itself known. “Do you want me to get closer?” he asked, his voice sounding less superior and cold, and more brittle and fragile. _You go too fast for me, Crowley_. The words echoed in his mouth, all but tangible in the air, but Aziraphale didn’t seem to hear the constant repetition of them like Crowley did.

He didn’t look up from his cocoa as he said, in a miserable way that evoked a pang from Crowley’s heart, “Yes, please.”

Crowley inched closer. His sofa had never seemed quite so long when he bought it, but now it seemed longer than ever, and his movements up the seat of it felt infinitesimal, barely bringing him closer to the angel… Until he _was_ close, until he was close enough almost to touch, and Aziraphale turned his head to look at him. He sipped at his cocoa.

“It was Pat Mullarkey’s wake,” Aziraphale mumbled.

Understanding dawned, and Crowley bit the inside of his lip. “Another one?” he asked. It was only February. How many did that make, this year…?

“He was thirty-nine,” Aziraphale said, and he exhaled hard, feeling the threat to cry make itself known again. “Oh, Crowley, I barely even knew the boy. Just that— You know, I’m in the Hyacinth and Vine once or twice a week, and he came into the shop once or twice… I recommended he read _Maurice_ , you know, and he came back in with a _cake_ he’d baked for me. Isn’t that so lovely? He was so— He was so happy with the book that he…”

Aziraphale trailed off.

Crowley knew what Aziraphale was like, in Soho. He knew he went into various little clubs, that he’d saved a few of them from getting raided, when that was a concern, that he had his favourites… That he kept a big section of Gay and Lesbian books in his shop, always, _always_ , had done since long before that had been what the section was called.

“He said it was so important, you know,” Aziraphale murmured. “To think that people like us could have happy endings.”

“He have people that loved him?” Crowley asked. He watched the tightness in Aziraphale’s face, the way his fingers gripped the mug, and swallowed.

“His family—” Aziraphale started.

“Don’t care about them,” Crowley said. “He have people that loved him? Full wake? Lots of people talking about how much they loved him, and how much he loved them?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said haltingly.

“S’all that matters, angel,” Crowley murmured, softly, comfortingly. It… it made sense, he supposed, that Aziraphale would like those humans. It made sense, when they felt like outsiders, when _they_ had secrets from their families, when… It wasn’t the same. But Crowley understood why one would be comforted, and he ached to comfort Aziraphale himself, to reach out, to touch him…

“I’m very drunk, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and he put his cocoa mug down rather more heavily than he meant to on the coffee table, watching it slosh slightly – although it didn’t dare slosh enough to drip onto the table.

“That’s alright,” Crowley said. “You’ll sober up eventually.”

Aziraphale inhaled.

How much longer? Every moment he spent with Crowley, every minute, he felt the space between them like a canyon, like it was some impassable distance between them, and yet Crowley was so _close_ , within his hand’s reach, so easily… Aziraphale looked down at Crowley’s foot, scarcely a few inches from Aziraphale’s blanket-clad thigh, at the shine of black scales on its sole, tantalisingly within reach; at Crowley’s ankle, thin and shapely, ever the envy of every man he passed when shapely ankles were of a man’s concern; a smidgen of his pale calf, visible beneath the silk shift of his pyjamas.

“I’m so frightened, Crowley,” Aziraphale said softly. “I don’t— I don’t want to Fall.”

“You won’t Fall,” Crowley said, alarmed. “Angel, no, you won’t—”

Aziraphale touched Crowley’s ankle, wrapping his hand loosely around it, and he felt the cool, pale skin beneath his palm. It was so much more intimate, he realised, his cheeks hot with a burning flush, that merely brushing shoulders or touching hands in the course of a conversation, merely by virtue of the touch being deliberate, of the fact that he was reaching _out_ , to touch him, to touch him—

“ _Angel_.”

“Please. Come— Come closer. I shan’t bite.”

“I might.”

“Oh, _don’t_ ,” Aziraphale said, detesting the whine in his voice, “please, Crowley, please—”

“I won’t,” Crowley said. “Not when you’re going to shove me off in a second. I won’t, angel, I won’t come close just so you can push me back again, and you’re _drunk_ —”

“I won’t,” Aziraphale promised, aware of the way he was begging, of the desperate ache that thickened in his own voice, “please, Crowley, I cannot bear the dearth between us, I have felt the pain of it for so long, and I cannot thrust you back from me anymore, _please_ —” Aziraphale had thrown open the blanket, asking with his body as much as his slurred words, fear thudding in his veins, but Crowley crawled closer in tiny little increments, as if he feared he might burst into flames.

He didn’t.

He came until his knees were laid in Aziraphale’s lap, awkwardly crouched upon his scaly feet against Aziraphale’s side, and Aziraphale threw the great blanket about him, his arm wrapping tightly around Crowley’s waist and pulling him closer.

“Oh,” he whispered against Crowley’s breast, which wasn’t cool, as his ankles were, but was _warm_. He could smell Crowley’s cologne, could smell the floral shampoo he used in his hair, and he felt the silk of Crowley’s pyjamas under his fingers, and then, oh, oh, Crowley’s arm wrapped about his head, his fingers curling in Aziraphale’s hair… “Oh, Crowley…”

“Angel,” Crowley whispered against his forehead, and Aziraphale felt him bury his nose in Aziraphale’s hair, pressing against it, felt Crowley clutching at him as if he might well drown without him. Aziraphale, drunk, felt as if the world was swaying about them, so maybe Crowley was right, maybe they would drown if they weren’t holding one another, just like this—

Crowley leaned down, and he pressed their faces together, and Aziraphale gasped, expecting a kiss, but it didn’t come: Crowley clutched at his cheeks, cupping them in his surprisingly soft hands, and his nose rubbed against Aziraphale’s, their noses tip to tip.

“Sober up,” Crowley whispered.

The fear lurched within him like a wave. “Can’t,” he mumbled. “Can’t, Crowley, can’t—”

“ _Sober up_ ,” Crowley growled, and the wine evaporated out of Aziraphale’s veins with an uncomfortable wrench to his dulled emotion. Aziraphale shuddered, his fingers gripping all the tighter at Crowley’s back and at the side of his thigh (when had his hand got _there?_ ), and he exhaled, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

He felt…

He felt everything now.

He felt the weight of Crowley’s body, half in his lap and half leaned against his chest; he felt the shimmer of Crowley’s pyjamas and remembered when he’d actually _bought_ them, in a shop in Manchester a few years ago, and had threatened to get a matching pair for Aziraphale as he’d giggled and said red silk wasn’t his style; he was aware of Crowley’s breath against his mouth, slightly sweet-smelling and of soft exhalations.

“See?” Crowley asked, his fingers touching through Aziraphale’s hair, and oh, it felt so lovely, so delicate, so _intimate_ , like when the hairdresser washed his hair but so much _sweeter_ , so much more full of love, why had nobody ever touched him like this before…? “You’re not Falling, sweetheart,” _sweetheart! Sweetheart! Oh, his heart would burst,_ “I got you, I have you.”

“I won’t push you away,” Aziraphale whispered. “I want— Oh, I just want this, Crowley.”

“I want everything,” Crowley replied, feeling like he’d shatter. Aziraphale’s body was everything he’d ever imagined, and he’d imagined it a _lot_ : plush and warm and soft and just yielding enough that Crowley could wrap right around him if he wanted to… “But this is enough.”

“You could,” Aziraphale said, and his tongue quivered in its bed, his eyes remaining tightly closed: the terror gripped him like some tight, iron manacles, but he ached, oh, he ached and he yearned and he _wanted_ , and they were touching, now, they were touching, and he had wanted so long for this _love_ , for Crowley’s love, to accept it, to give it in turn, to have… “You could kiss me. If you wanted. I—”

Crowley’s mouth was on his, and Aziraphale could hear the _noise_ he was making, a desperate little keen of noise in his throat, like he could scarcely believe what was happening. Aziraphale gasped against his lips, and he squeezed Crowley tighter, letting Crowley’s lips move against his own, and oh, oh, he could move his own, just— Just so—

Six thousand years.

Six thousand years…

“Aziraphale?” came a voice from behind Crowley, and Aziraphale felt as if he had been plunged into horror itself when he beheld, in the midst of Crowley’s minimalist décor, the archangels Michael and Uriel, standing stock-still and staring at the scene before them.

"I can explain," Aziraphale choked out, and when Crowley moved to scramble from his lap, his hands acted purely on instinct, and clutched the demon all the tighter. 

 

[1] Aziraphale, a.k.a. Mr A.Z. Fell, Principality of the Eastern Gate, bookseller, and often-patron of certain gentlemen’s clubs in the London vicinity.

[2] Crowley, a.k.a. Mr A.J. Crowley, Tempter of Eve in Eden, businessman of vague description, flash bastard extraordinaire.

[3] And the bastard had looked very bored for his fifteen minutes, too, especially since Crowley had ensured his tea order had been wrong and that his scone had been stale. And his radio had conked out, too.

[4] It played a different James Bond theme for every day of the week, and was the absolute horror of his neighbours, as the sound carried for two storeys in each direction, and echoed _loudly_ in the corridor of his flat block.

[5] Crowley liked to appear rich and exclusive, and the best way to appear rich was by seeming not to own anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**EARLIER**

“And,” Uriel said, and the other archangels turned to glance her way, “we need to talk about Aziraphale.”

Michael pressed her lips together, holding her shoulders just a little higher; Gabriel frowned deeply, crossing his arms over his chest; Sandalphon hummed. It wasn’t clear whether the hum was directed at Uriel or at something internal, as Sandalphon was looking out of one of the wide windows, and not at her.

“He’s getting more odd,” Uriel said, standing her ground and raising her chin a little higher. This was always the way, when it came to Aziraphale. “A lot of personal miracles on his reports, recently – all little individual things, and all based around London.”

“That’s not so different to usual,” Michael said, her brows furrowing.

“No, but these are all…” Uriel trailed off. She couldn’t help but think, for a long moment, that Raphael would be better for this than her. That Raphael… Raphael was an angel of _healing_ , he knew about these things, about sickness, and illness, and plague. It was strange, that he could be dead for so long, and that his absence could be felt so keenly. Angels did feel, after all, although Uriel knew that they weren’t meant to. But he was better at understanding things like this, angels went they went funny. Uriel wasn’t, and she knew she wasn’t, and it was _dangerous_. “They’re personal. He— He does little miracles. Alleviates people’s symptoms, and _liberally_. Not enough to cure them, because he knows that’s too much, but—”

“Well, so long as he’s not doing too much, I don’t see the problem,” Gabriel said blandly, clapping his hands together. “The memos help, huh? You know, so long as he’s not going too far, he pretty much has carte blanc—”

“But he’s too _attached_ ,” Uriel said. Her voice wasn’t plaintive. She didn’t whine. Her voice was in the low, toneless voice she always had, but she knew that something must have shown in her face[1], because Gabriel’s smile faltered, and bled away from his lips.

Angels weren’t meant to be among humans for too long. The other angelic field agents, of which there were a great many in Heaven, were despatched for their work for mere hours or minutes at a time, completing their jobs before returning home and filling out their reports. Exposure to humans was…

It wasn’t that it was bad.

None of the four of them thought humans were _bad_ – the point of them was kind of that bad and good were both there in potential, and that they just needed to nudge themselves in the right direction of one or the other. But… There were changes that had happened, since the Great Fall, since the War. There were things that were different.

They wore human shapes now, all of them, and had even been issued bodies to make those shapes more real. They burst out of them, not really fitting in the shape as humans did themselves: Uriel and Michael each shed golden flakes without meaning to, and Michael’s ethereal glow spread on her skin like warm butter; Sandalphon’s teeth, his bones, were gold on the inside, and the grill was only the start of it; Lucifer had shone with brightness, even crammed into a human skin; Raphael’s hair and his eyes had each burned red with holy fire, the purifying flame; Gabriel…

Well. Gabriel was private about things like that[2].

But being in a human shape, like this, _it changed you_ , no matter how much you burst out of it. And once you wore a body, especially if you wore one all the time?

You were more physical, of course: sensations meant thing to a corporeal body that they never did to an ethereal one. A human body had wants, had needs – you could suppress them, of course, but these weren’t just philosophical _ideas_ , they were neurological impulses, hormonal responses, they were chemical, physical. A human body, even before it has anyone in it at all, has been wired to crave food and water, physical touch, stimulation… Some of them wanted _sex_.

Up in Heaven, it was easier.

You were away from most physical sensations, and you were away from time as a linear thing. You were away from scents and smells and tastes and all that noise. You were away from other humans.

But not Aziraphale.

Aziraphale had been down there, _alone_ , for six thousand years, and in bits and pieces, over the years, it had taken its toll, it had—

“Uriel,” Michael said softly, quietly direct, in the way she found so easy to be, “what is it you’re worried about?”

It wasn’t about food. Uriel had heard Michael and Gabriel wrinkle their noses up at food, even though Michael liked her long hair and soft fabrics, even though Gabriel liked his tailored clothes and his exercise, and she didn’t see the big difference, really, between consuming something corporeal and clothing yourself with it, it was all sort of unpleasant, but… Around that many people. That many people, _dying_ , and suffering, and reaching out for help.

Angels were _meant_ to be removed from things like that. They weren’t down on Earth, when these things happened: there were degrees of separation. In a human body, you got attached to things, sensations, _other_ human bodies, and getting attached to something with that short of a lifespan, so many somethings with lifespans like that… It could turn you funny, it could. More than that.

Uriel didn’t want Aziraphale to Fall. What if he did?

She said nothing. She set her jaw. It was _wrong_ , she thought, for angels to feel. It was wrong, for them to get caught up in physical sensation. Here, she was apart even from Michael and Gabriel, from Sandalphon; they wore real clothes, Gabriel jogged, Michael wore her hair long, combed it, simply for the pleasure of it.

They thought, Uriel knew, that she was… extreme. That she took things too seriously.

Someone had to.

“Angels aren’t worried,” Uriel said. “But Aziraphale has been down there too long.”

“We did offer for him to come home,” Sandalphon said, almost idly. “When he had his commendation a few centuries ago. He didn’t want to.”

Sandalphon didn’t want Aziraphale to Fall. But… if _Aziraphale_ wanted to, who was supposed to stop him? Why would they?

“No,” Gabriel said, shaking his head, “no, no, he did. But he had to stay down on Earth, to thwart the demon Crowley. Of course he wanted to come home. But he had to stay.” Gabriel’s face was a mask of consternation, his brows furrowed, his mouth twisted, his nose wrinkled slightly[3]. He was looking at Sandalphon, and Uriel could imagine that he was begging Sandalphon not to disagree with him, just with his eyes, with his expression.

Sandalphon gave a delicate shrug of his shoulders, seeming apologetic, and Gabriel sighed hard.

Gabriel didn’t want Aziraphale to Fall.

He had never wanted anyone to Fall, not ever, and they had. Lucifer had Fallen, and taken so many with him, and in the War, so many had died, or Fallen themselves. Like this, with just the three of them left – and Sandalphon here with them – he felt the gaps in the line, felt the absence of Raphael and Lucifer both. Gabriel, he was the eldest, now, he had been made third, no matter that Michael was smarter than him, that she was better than him at things like this.

He wasn’t meant to be the eldest. Angels weren’t meant to think in terms of time at all.

“I don’t trust him,” Sandalphon said.

“Do you?” Gabriel asked, and looked at Michael[4].

Michael didn’t want Aziraphale to Fall.

Aziraphale was one of her charges, as much as anyone else in the armies[5] of Heaven. Aziraphale was under her command, even now, and yet she never knew what to do with him. She knew that he’d been down there too long, that he was too involved with the humans, that he needed to disentangle himself, but…

You couldn’t force it.

If you forced it, then he _would_ Fall. He had to come back on his own, just like the humans had to learn to be good on their own, but—

You could…

Nudge him, she supposed.

Nudge him, like they nudged humans.

“What makes an angel Fall?” Sandalphon asked, in his slow, honeyed tones.

None of them answered.

None of them knew.

They knew the broad strokes, of course. Disobedience, you could Fall for that; asking the wrong questions, you could Fall for those; getting too _personal_ , coming away from being an angel, being too human or too independent, but… There were no definite lines. It was infuriating, terrifying, but even asking the Metatron gleaned no answers.

They knew that no one had Fallen in six thousand years. And that was _all_ they knew.

“We’ll just check in on him. How about that?”

“Yes,” Uriel said, and no relief showed in her face, or in her voice, but she felt it, and hated that she did. “Yes.”

\--

“I can explain,” Aziraphale said, and Michael watched, very, very still, her gaze focused, at the way the fiend tried to rush out of Aziraphale’s arms, but Aziraphale kept on him a very tight grip, one of his hands sprawled on the demon’s skinny thigh, another wrapped about his hip. They _had_ been kissing, there was no doubt about that: Aziraphale’s lips and the demon’s had made soft noises as they had brushed against one another between quiet sighs.

Michael felt very, very, _very_ cold.

She felt Uriel step forward, and she put out her hand, splaying her palm to catch Uriel by her chest, so that the other archangel came to a stop. She felt Uriel’s gaze on her face, felt the indignation radiate from her in waves.

It was not that archangels did not interact with their demonic counterparts. Certainly, they did. Each of the top brass had their own demons with which to speak, to go over certain parallels, certain negotiations. Gabriel and Beelzebub met up bi-centennially in order to consider certain disputes, and from what Michael knew, the two of them had a fairly comfortable working relationship. They understood one another, understood the pressures of their respective positions. They were, yes, the Enemy, but just because someone was your Enemy didn’t mean they weren’t, as you were, capable of being sensible.

Well. Gabriel wasn’t. But that wasn’t the point.

Other angels had to interact with demons on a more regular basis – the Court of Appeals, staffed with a variety of judges, lawyers, and analysts from the Host and the Horde respectively, was continuously working over the more problematic profiles of those souls that lingered in Purgatory, to decide where the soul’s final resting place might be. The other angelic field agents, who _weren’t_ constantly posted on Earth, often had demonic shadows, or vice versa.

It was not as though Heaven and Hell existed in their respective vacuums, interacting. They were _Enemies_ , yes, but they weren’t currently at war.

Standards had to be kept.

Michael was somewhat apart from the other archangels in that she had a way of viewing the world… in colour, let us say. She went beyond the above-board business relationships which were to be accepted in some parts of the occult/ethereal workplace, and had her _backchannels._

She communicated with Ligur; she met with Beelzebub. They worked out certain compromises that couldn’t be permitted on paperwork, certain crucial elements for both their sides, and went it came to warfare, she knew that would be different than it was in the Beginning, too, but—

Michael had never held Ligur in her lap, nor pressed her mouth to Beelzebub’s.

She might have seen where the lines could be bent, but not _crossed_.

She took in Aziraphale’s expression, the wide eyes on his face, the parting of his lips, the tension in his body, the tight hold of his hands on the demon’s body; she looked to the fiend, for once without the attendant sunglasses of which she had heard so much, at his thinned pupils, his pursed lips, at the slight tremble in his body, the way his legs were folded into Aziraphale’s lap.

Ligur had mentioned the demon Crowley. He’d referenced him before, as having gone a bit _strange_ , a bit native, and Beelzebub had gone on further, had said he was _too focused_ on the angel Aziraphale, but it was the same on their side too, and it was easier to let them have their rivalry than it was to try to shift the scales.

This wasn’t rivalry.

“Aziraphale,” Michael said, “we came here to visit you, but we have… interrupted something. Come up to us tomorrow, why don’t you?”

It wasn’t a suggestion. She saw the terror in Aziraphale’s face, the way his throat jumped as he swallowed, but no, no arguments. He didn’t push Crowley off him, didn’t beg them to stay. His eyes didn’t flit to Crowley, to see how he responded.

“Er,” Aziraphale said. “Y— I can explain, really, it isn’t what it looks li—”

“Tomorrow,” Michael said. She smiled at Aziraphale. He let out a breathy whimper.

“ _Michael_ ,” Uriel hissed, incensed, but Michael shook her head, grabbing Uriel by the shoulder and pulling her with her. They left as quickly as they had come, flickering right back to Heaven just as they had flickered to be directly where Aziraphale was, and left an angel and a demon, tangled up in one another and sharing their fears as one.

\--

For a long, long moment, Crowley and Aziraphale were frozen in their places. Crowley didn’t so much as dare to breathe, his arms still around Aziraphale’s neck, and he was aware of how warm Aziraphale’s body was, how much he wanted to sink right into it, where nothing, nobody, could get at either of them ever again.

“Didn’t imagine that, did I?” Crowley asked.

“No,” Aziraphale said. “I don’t— I don’t believe so.”

Crowley was aware of the fear in his chest, cold, seeping outward as if someone was pouring ice water into his chest cavity. He was trembling. He had been trembling for some minutes. Aziraphale’s fingers were going to leave fingertip bruises on his thigh. He didn’t mind that part so much.

The angel was staring forward.

“You should go,” he said, at the same time Crowley said, “We can run away together.”

“What?”

“What?”

 _You should go_.

The words echoed in Crowley’s head, echoed in them, rushed through his body and cut like razorblades. _I won’t come close,_ Crowley had said, _just so you can push me away again_ , and he’d believed him, hadn’t he? Stupid, stupid Crowley, he’d believed Aziraphale when he said he wouldn’t.

( _But he held you, didn’t he? He kept hold of you when they were here? He didn’t push you off then._ )

“Run away together?” Aziraphale repeated.

 _His_ head was caught up with the most dreadful images, images he couldn’t quite crawl away from, the idea of Crowley caught in Heaven’s trap, Crowley hurt, Crowley burning, Crowley  _dying_ , oh, but what if they did, what if they killed him? And Aziraphale Falling, Falling, Fallen, down to where he could do nothing to _save_ him—

“We could go,” Crowley said breathlessly, “away from Earth. Away. We could go— Angel, please, you can’t stay here, _we_ can’t stay here.” His hands cupped Aziraphale’s face, and he looked him in the eyes, taking in the pretty shine of Aziraphale’s eyes. He was breathing fast, breathing heavily, couldn’t stop the slight hiss of his intake and outtake of breath. “They wouldn’t follow us. If we left. Why would they? We could go—”

There was a soft whooshing noise. It was quiet, polite, sudden. Aziraphale looked to the side of the sofa, at the neat memo card on the cushion beside him, and he reached for it.

His hand came away from Crowley’s thigh to do so, and Crowley sighed at the loss.

**_AZIRAPHALE;_ **

**_REMINDER OF YOUR MEETING TOMORROW, HEAD OFFICE._ **

**_DON’T MISS IT!_ **

**_G._ **

Aziraphale swallowed.

“How, exactly,” he said quietly, looking into Crowley’s eyes, “would we go?”

“I’d get the car,” Crowley said. “Pack it up. Get all our things together, use a little magic, and… Just go off, like in _Grease_.”

“Is that the one where the little town, they ban dancing?”

“No, angel, that’s _Footloose_. _Grease_ is the one where they fly off into the sun at the end.”

“The one with baby in the corner?”

“ _No_ , that’s _Dirty Dancing_ ,” Crowley said, “ _Grease_ has John Travolta and Oliva Newton-John, and the black suit at the end?”

“Oh, and the young girl who wants to go ballet school?”

“ _No_ , angel, that’s _Flashdance_.” Crowley paused for a moment. “I think. How many of these fucking films have we seen?”

“Don’t curse, dear,” Aziraphale murmured.

“Sorry.”

“Well, in any case—”

There was another whoosh. They looked at it.

**_AZIRAPHALE;_ **

**_JUST A REMINDER THAT ATTENDANCE AT TOMORROW’S MEETING IS MANDATORY._ **

**_G._ **

“Well,” Aziraphale said, “it’s not as if they’d come chasing after us.”

He closed his eyes at the responding whoosh.

“I really don’t like that,” Crowley said.

“Yes, I’m not fond either,” Aziraphale muttered, and looked.

**_AZIRAPHALE;_ **

**_WE WOULD COME CHASING AFTER YOU. ☺_ **

**_G._ **

“Is that a smiley face?”

“Oh, for f— goodness’ sake,” Aziraphale muttered, and pressed his face against Crowley’s chest.

“He used a _smiley_ face? On a memo?”

Aziraphale groaned.

“Does he always do that?”

“Why do you ask?” Aziraphale mumbled.

“Nothing. I do that, that’s all.”

Aziraphale laughed. It was a slightly hysterical sound, even muffled as it was against Crowley’s chest hair, and Crowley wrapped his arms around him, holding him tighter, his mouth pressed against the top of his head.

“Let’s go to bed,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale shivered. “Crowley,” he said, “I _do_ think there’s heavenly surveillance on me just about now. I really don’t think it would be appropriate to—”

“ _Sleep_?” Crowley asked, trying not to let the giddy rush of excitement show in his voice, at the fact that the angel thought he meant _sex_ , that his objection to sex wasn’t sex, but the idea of a Host of voyeurs, that Aziraphale might want _sex_ , sex, sex! Crowley had never had sex before. The idea of sex with Aziraphale was… terrifying. Appealing! But… terrifying.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. His cheeks were very red. “Yes, well… I hardly see how there’d be anything wrong with that.”

There was another whoosh. Crowley set the memo on fire before the angel could look at it, and pulled Aziraphale into another kiss.

\--

Gabriel was pacing.

Uriel and Michael were already sitting down at the long table, facing the single chair that Aziraphale would be sitting on when he came in, but Gabriel was pacing back and forth, along the wide window of the office. Sandalphon, never far away when Gabriel was upset – unless Gabriel had specifically _asked_ him to go elsewhere – was on his feet beside him, although he didn’t fall into step with the archangel.

He just stood there, watching him go one way and then the other, with his hands loosely clasped in front of his belly.

“He’s not gonna come,” Gabriel said. “He’s gonna go off with that demon.”

“He’s going to come,” Michael said. It was the thirty-second time she’d said it today. The phrase was beginning to wear thin.

“He _should_ go,” Uriel muttered. “He’s a _traitor_ —”

“We don’t know that,” Gabriel said sharply, defensively, and Sandalphon reached out to brush his arm as he came past, but Gabriel’s hand came for his instead, interlinking their fingers. Sandalphon felt some of his fingers creak at the strength of Gabriel’s grip, but he didn’t let the pain show in his face, and just smiled at him, showing the burst of gold from beneath his gums.

“We don’t,” Michael agreed, rubbing her forehead as she looked down at the observation file in front of her. All these pictures of Aziraphale and Crowley together, on benches, at shows, in restaurants… They didn’t, she supposed, looked like the sort of pictures one _usually_ saw of two rivals meeting to gall one another, or even to negotiate. There wasn’t a single picture of Crowley hissing at Aziraphale, and not once did it appear as if Aziraphale had threatened the demon.

She looked to tablet beside her, which had Aziraphale’s miracles neatly tabulated[6][7] in columns. Some of them were… _strange_. Not that they weren’t good deeds, exactly, although things like “some marshmallows in my cocoa” and “a more comfortable dining chair” didn’t strike her as particularly in the realm of Good, but Aziraphale _was_ on Earth 24/7, and some allowances were to be made. Too many allowances, maybe, but allowances nonetheless.

No, the weird thing was little geographic incongruities.

A miracle claimed here, in Glasgow, stopping a big car crash, and just a few seconds later, a baby saved from a burning building in New York. Here, in Los Angeles, knocking out a policeman who was harassing the homeless, and giving him the divine inspiration to pursue a career as a solo fisherman, away from anybody else; and at almost the same second, here in Queensland, Australia, making sure that a landslide didn’t hurt anybody serious.

And that was just the _big_ ones.

There were tiny little claims blips, too, just in London. Little miracles coinciding, even though they were happening streets and streets away from each other, sometimes boroughs and boroughs away.

It was…

 _Odd_.

There was a quiet tapping on the floor, out in the corridor, and Michael glanced up as Aziraphale stepped into the meeting room, his gaze downcast.

“Amriel!” Gabriel called over Aziraphale’s shoulder as he rushed forward, and Aziraphale let out a sharp burst of noise as Gabriel grabbed him by the shoulders, leaning right in to look at his face.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” Aziraphale yelped, but Gabriel kept hold of him, touching his shoulders, the sides of his neck, forcing his head up so that he could look at his face. “Gabriel, please—”

“Gabriel, let him _go_ ,” Michael snapped, and Gabriel stumbled back, holding his hands against his own chest, but she could see how stiff he was, how much he wanted to keep hold of Aziraphale now that he was here. “Sandalphon, get him to sit down, would you?”

Sandalphon touched Gabriel’s wrist, trying to pull him away, but Gabriel didn’t budge.

“Amriel,” Aziraphale said nervously as the other angel entered the room, and Amriel gave him a light, easy smile, their eyes as hazy as ever, the colour of peach-stained clouds during sunset, with no discernible pupils, whites, or irises at all. “Why are you— What are you going to do to me?”

He took a stumbling step back, and Amriel hesitated, tilting their head to the side.

“He’s going to examine you,” Michael said. “Make sure you’re okay. The same thing Gabriel was clumsily doing.”

“I’m not _clumsy_ ,” Gabriel said. “They _bite_ , demons _bite_ , and they bruise, and they don’t care if you say no, Aziraphale, how could you be so—”

“Gabriel,” Michael said.

“Is he okay?” Gabriel demanded, and Amriel shrugged their shoulders.

“Can’t tell,” they said in a voice like a summer breeze. “Can I have a look at you, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale was trembling as he put out his hands, letting Amriel take hold of them, and the colour in Amriel’s gaze deepened as their Grace washed gently over Aziraphale’s own, little clouds seeming to form around their eyes, their face, as they did so.

“No damage, none at all,” they finally said, serenely. “And the body is very healthy too, Aziraphale, well done. It’s important to keep it fed and watered when you’re down on Earth so long, I’m glad you haven’t been squeamish about eating.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, voice shaking, although not quite so much as he was. “Good. Well. Thank you. Er. I think.”

Amriel floated out, and Aziraphale glanced to Gabriel and Sandalphon. Gabriel was staring at him, his violet eyes flitting over Aziraphale as if he was a vase and Gabriel was looking for cracks in him, and Aziraphale had always felt uncomfortable when Gabriel stared at him, but this, this was—

 _Intense_.

“Come and sit down,” Michael said. “ _All_ of you.”

Gabriel let Sandalphon pull him to sit down at the long table, and Aziraphale hesitated at the side of the office, taking a slow, tumbling step toward the little chair. He _hated_ it when they did this – they did it for performance reviews, too, put just a single chair in front of the long table, where you had to just sort of _sit_ there, and talk to them.

He sat down, his knees pressing together, his hands in his lap. He didn’t meet any of their gazes just glanced at the. Gabriel’s hands were clenched into fists on the table in a way that made him very nervous, Uriel’s gaze was cold, Sandalphon was frowning, a deep furrow wrought in his brow, and Michael…

Michael was looking at paperwork.

Aziraphale swallowed.

He had considered it. Running away. Crowley had the Bentley packed and ready, as a getaway plan, but what if they didn’t let him leave? But what if they _had_ chased after them, and Crowley had gotten hurt?

What if?

What if, what if, what if?

“I won’t let you hurt him,” he blurted out.

All four angels stared at him.

“You, you _can’t_ hurt him,” Aziraphale said. “He’s a— He’s a living, well, not, not, exactly a living thing, but he’s a _thing_ , no, no, he’s a _person_ , um, oh, oh, no, he’s not a person, but he’s a— He’s real, you know? He’s real, and you can’t hurt him, you _can’t_ , and you _won’t_ , and I— for what’s more, I shan’t let you. He’s never done anything to harm anybo— Well, he’s a demon, but he’s never actually wanted to _hurt_ anybody, not hurt anybody, or k— Killed anybody, except for Nazis and so on, and he never really killed them anyway, always gave them the chance to run away, and my point is that he hasn’t _ever_ tried to hurt me, not ever, not even in Eden, and I really don’t think that…” He was losing steam fast. His cheeks were burning, his heart hammering in his chest, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe – and he didn’t need to breathe, but it felt a good deal different to _choose_ not to breathe than to suddenly not be able to. “And I don’t see what the harm is.”

“You don’t see what the harm is,” Uriel repeated bluntly, tilting her head slightly to the side.

“ _No_ , actually,” Aziraphale said stubbornly. His lip was quivering. He didn’t remember how to tell it to stop.

“How long has it been going on?” Michael asked quietly. “The demon Crowley, he was at Eden, the original tempter. Was that when it started?”

“He sort of— He sort of, um, he c-came up to me. When I was guarding the gate, you know, er, and he came… And he stood next to me, just on the wall, you know, and made… Smalltalk.”

“Smalltalk?” Gabriel repeated.

“You know,” Aziraphale said. “Conversation.”

“I don’t know, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said stiffly. “What conversation?”

Aziraphale squirmed in his seat, shuddering in a breath. “He— He sort of, um, well, he said, well, that went down like a lead balloon.”

“What’s that mean?” Gabriel asked. “Is that code?”

“What? No! It’s a simile, it means, erm, that something didn’t go down well.”

“Go down _where_?”

“It _means_ ,” Michael said, her eyes narrowed slightly, her gaze fixated on Aziraphale, “that the response to his temptation was a bad one. That the Almighty responded badly.”

Aziraphale nodded.

“And what did he say then? What did you make conversation about?”

Aziraphale swallowed. He couldn’t lie directly to Heaven, could he? Well. He’d lied to God… But that wasn’t, well, that was a long time ago, it would be bad to do it now, but he had lost it, but they didn’t _know_ he’d lost the sword, and God had never said, he didn’t think, She’d never said…

“Er, I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Bit long ago to remember exactly. But he was— He was nice.”

“He _isn’t_ nice,” Gabriel said. “He’s a _demon_.”

“He _was_ ,” Aziraphale snapped back, flinching when he saw Gabriel lean back in his seat. “He was— He was _nice_. And he sort of, um, he comforted me. When I was nervous. About being a bad angel.”

“You _are_ a bad an—”

“Uriel,” Michael said, and Uriel closed her mouth. “How did he comfort you?”

“Well,” Aziraphale mumbled. “He just sort of… said that I, um, that I couldn’t do the wrong thing, because I’m an angel. And then it started raining, so I sort of… I put my wing out.”

“For him to _touch_?” Gabriel repeated, disgusted.

“ _Gabriel_ ,” Michael said, sharper than she had been with Uriel.

“No!” Aziraphale said. “No, just, sort of, well, it had never rained before, you see, and I didn’t know what it was, so I sort of put my wing out, and he leaned underneath it. You know, like when you hold an umbrella for somebody.”

“No,” Uriel said, but Sandalphon nodded his head in understanding.

“And that was when it started?” Michael asked.

“Not exactly,” Aziraphale mumbled. “We were sort of… You know, we kind of avoided one another, for a while, er, and then we’d cross paths during, um, during downtime.”

“Downtime?” Uriel repeated.

“Mm. Er, and we’d— Just, you know, we’d walk in the same caravan, if we were going the same direction, or whatever. And I’d, I’d thwart his wiles, and he’d try to corrupt my charms. But then he sort of… He made this _really_ compelling argument, um, at one point, that we were both sent to the same place to do the opposite thing, and that we were sort of cancelling each other out, and so, er, maybe we could just go off together, somewhere, and we’d be accomplishing the same result.”

“You could have lied,” Michael said.

“What?”

“You could have lied. Said, yes, fiend, I’ll go off with you, and then when he left, you could have accomplished your mission.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth. Closed it. The indignation he felt was palpable. “I couldn’t— I couldn’t do _that_. It would be dishonest!”

“Okay,” Michael said, tapping her stylus against the desk. The three quiet clicks echoed in Aziraphale’s ears like gunshots. “And then you started doing things for one another. He’d do miracles for you, and you’d do catastrophes for him.”

“He did _what_?” Uriel demanded.

Aziraphale stared down at his shoes. “Erm. Well, it was just— You know, they were going to get done _anyway_ , so it only made sense that we split them between us, it was actually very efficient, er, if he was going one way and I was going another, because we could just—”

“Did he force you?” Gabriel asked.

Aziraphale looked up. “Force me?”

“Force you,” Gabriel repeated. “Did he say he’d hurt you, if you didn’t do what he said? Did he ever hurt you?”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “Er… Well. He has hurt me, I suppose,” Aziraphale murmured, thinking of the time in the park, and then the holy water… “But no more than I’ve hurt him. And never, erm, never physically. And he didn’t _force_ me, it was just, you know, we came to an agreement, it was equal, on both sides, it was… It made sense.”

“ _Did_ it?” Sandalphon asked.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, resolutely. “It— It did.”

“So you— You chose this?” Gabriel asked, looking directly at him. “You chose him? He never… He never twisted your arm, or hurt you, or forced you to do anything? Never forced you to kiss him, or overpowered you and—”

“No!” Aziraphale said, horrified. “No, he could _never_.”

Gabriel, to Aziraphale’s surprise, relaxed. He leaned back in his seat, looking pensive[8].

“So, he didn’t hurt you? Didn’t bite you, or coil you, or whatever?”

“No.”

“Hm. So when you said all that stuff, where you were like, uh, thwarting his wiles and stuff, you were lying?”

Aziraphale hesitated. “Er. I wouldn’t say, exactly, that I was _lying_. Because I do thwart a good deal of his wiles.”

“So long as he thwarts a lot of your do-gooding,” Sandalphon said.

“Er. Yes.”

“So you lied to us,” Gabriel said, “but you didn’t lie to _him_ , because that would be dishonest?”

“Because you thought you’d Fall?” Sandalphon asked.

Aziraphale floundered, his hands clenching into little fists, but Michael slowly shook her head.

“Because you thought we’d hurt him,” she said slowly.

“Well, of _course_ you would,” Aziraphale said miserably. “And I won’t let you. All these people we’ve murdered, all these _innocent_ people—”

“Murdered? How do you figure _that_?” Gabriel asked.

“All the plagues! The disasters! All these things that we’ve done to be Good, hurting people so that they’ll be _Good_ , and he can’t be Good, so obviously you’d just kill him. Obviously. And I don’t… I can’t let you— If _he_ was…”

“Do you love him?” Uriel asked.

“I love everyone,” Aziraphale said frantically. “I’m an angel.”

“Do you love him more?”

Aziraphale tore his gaze away from Uriel’s face, staring down at the floor again. It was very polished, and he could see his face in it. He wished he couldn’t. The face looked very nervous, and the eyes were threatening to burst into tears. “You can’t hurt him,” he whispered. “I’ll die if you do. I’ll just— I’ll just _die_.”

“Does he love you?” Michael asked.

Aziraphale shuddered.

“He doesn’t hurt him,” Gabriel said.

“Never forced him,” Sandalphon agreed.

“Does _favours_ for him,” Gabriel said. “You guys… You share the work, right? Like a marriage?”

“A marriage!? No! No, don’t be _ridiculous_ —”

“They live in the same place,” Sandalphon said[9].

“We live in the same _city_ —"

“Do you get each other gifts?” Gabriel asked.

“Well, I wouldn’t call them gifts—”

“And they were kissing?”

“They had their tongues down each others’ throats,” Uriel said.

“The demon must love him,” Gabriel said thoughtfully. “I didn’t know they could do that.”

“Nor did I,” said Sandalphon.

“I think it’s because they’re too human,” Uriel said. “Angels aren’t meant to love that personally. Demons aren’t meant to love at all.”

“But he said since the _Beginning_ ,” Gabriel said, turning to look at her. His body language was all different, now, not stiff at all, and Aziraphale had no _idea_ what was going on. “That was before they had _time_ to be too human – humanity was barely invented yet.”

Michael was still looking at Aziraphale.

She said, ignoring the back-and-forth, rather brittle conversation between Gabriel and Uriel, “We’re not going to harm him, Aziraphale. Or you.”

Aziraphale swallowed. “You’re not?”

“Why would we?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a demon. And I’m… I’m an angel.”

“But…” Michael said, tapping her stylus against the desk again, and Aziraphale winced. “You haven’t Fallen. And you haven’t done— You’ve never killed anyone, you said? His wickedness, it never actually hurts anybody, and you follow those rules too?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“Mmm,” Michael hummed. “It’s… interesting.” She sighed, and began to pack up her files. “You can go.”

“Go?”

“Go. Go back down to Earth.”

“And you’re not— Not going to, er, keep me here, or… or come after me?”

“We’ve seen _Grease_ too, Aziraphale,” Michael said sternly, meeting his gaze for a moment. “Don’t fly off in the car.”

“You know, I really don’t remember that bit,” Aziraphale mumbled, nervously wringing his hands.

“It’s right at the end. Just before the credits roll.”

“But why would they fly off…?”

Michael shrugged. “I thought it was an aesthetic choice, but Sandalphon has this theory that it means Sandy was in a coma the whole time.” She wasn’t looking at Aziraphale, and was instead focusing on her files, neatly packing them back away, so that the lines were all straight.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “So it’s— It’s alright? Is what you’re saying?”

“We’ll be in touch,” Michael said. She reminded Aziraphale of God, sometimes. Always so cryptic. Always with things going on that you didn’t understand. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t sure if that was wrong of him, to not like it.

“You can stay,” Gabriel said. “If you don’t want to go. But we’re not gonna keep you here, Aziraphale.”

“He would have chosen the demon,” Uriel said. “Over us. Over Heaven.”

“But we’re not forcing him to,” Michael murmured. “Are we?” Uriel and Michael met gazes. Aziraphale looked between the two of them, and the comparatively blank expressions of Gabriel and Sandalphon.

Uriel looked away. Michael nodded her head.

Aziraphale turned, swallowed, and walked out of Heaven.

 

[1] Uriel hated having one face.

[2] Angels weren’t meant to care about privacy. That was yet another little thing Uriel had noted, over the (infuriatingly) linear time that passed.

[3] Gabriel had an expressive face. It came of cramming the expressions of four faces onto just one.

[4] Gabriel always looked to Michael. A canny observer of their interactions might make note of the fact that Gabriel was the apparent manager of Heaven, but that Michael had led the celestial armies, and still did.

[5] Now offices, but Michael never stopped thinking of war.

[6] They were going to have physical copies of those files as well, but Aziraphale did so many minor miracles that they had ended  up with several dozen thick, juicy folders, and Sandalphon had wisely elected to bring a non-corporeal copy instead.

[7] Obviously, _all_ of the files in Heaven are non-corporeal, but the tablet copy of the files were, for want of a better word, digital copies. Getting a straight explanation from an angel on this topic would be impossible anyway, as most of Heaven believed that the e in e-mail stood for “ethereal”.

[8] Well, about as pensive as Gabriel could look, which was more like “Golden Retriever trying to comprehend operation of doorknob” than “great thinker on the verge of inspiration”.

 

[9] Most angels had a relatively loose grasp on the concept of “same”, “near”, and “far”, when it came to corporeal geography.

**Author's Note:**

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> 
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